JULIE SZEGO

EARLIER this month, Abraham H Foxman, of the US-based Anti-Defamation League, wrote to Justice Richard Goldstone urging him to repudiate the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (HRC) report “that has your name attached to it”.

The letter was striking not for its content –- which stressed the report’s damage to Israel’s reputation and its potential undermining of the peace process -– but for its generally courteous tone. “I know that you are moral and principled,” Foxman wrote. “I surely don’t agree with the attacks that label you a self-hating Jew.”
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CARTOONIST Kron comments on the United Nations report by Richard Goldstone into the Gaza war of December 2008.

Richard Goldstone … found evidence of war crimes from both the Israel Defence Forces and Hamas.

WASHINGTON — The US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to condemn the Richard Goldstone report.

The vote on Tuesday was 344 to 36 and urged the Obama administration to keep the report accusing Israel and Hamas of war crimes in the Gaza war from advancing through the United Nations system.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbied hard for the non-binding resolution, said it “strongly applauds” its passing.

“Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator,” AIPAC said.

The vote comes on the eve of debate on the report in the UN General Assembly; the report has already been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council.
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CARTOONIST Kron comments on the United Nations report by Richard Goldstone into the Gaza war of December 2008.

Richard Goldstone (UN Photo)

WASHINGTON - The United Nations Security Council will meet to discuss a request for an emergency session on the Goldstone Commission report.
The meeting next Wednesday comes at the request of Libya, the lone Arab member of the 15-nation council, according to reports.

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CARTOONIST Kron looks at the fallout from the United Nations report by Richard Goldstone into the Gaza war of December 2008

Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Photo: AJN file

NAOMI LEVIN

THE Australian Government has reserved judgement on the Goldstone Commission Report into the war in Gaza, despite condemnation of the report’s findings around the world.

The report, released last week, accuses the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the Israeli government of committing war crimes during the war against Hamas earlier this year.

Israel refused to cooperate with the commission after Cuba, Egypt and Pakistan drafted the United Nations resolution to investigate “grave violations of human rights” in the “occupied Palestinian Territories”.

Israel’s fears of bias were confirmed with the report’s release, which took a very heavy hand to IDF actions.
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Danger: minefield ahead

THE Goldstone Commission Report on Gaza, released on Tuesday, has the potential of being a minefield for Israel. The report is the latest in a parade of critical reports on Israel initiated by the United Nations (UN).

The boilerplate argument that the report should not be taken seriously because the UN has a historic bias against Israel – a charge that is not unfounded – will not be enough to counter this particular report, for a number of reasons.
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RONI SOFER

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday evening harshly criticised the conclusions of a United Nations committee which probed the Israel Defense Forces’ operation in Gaza and accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes.

“The Goldstone Report is a field court-marital, and its findings were prewritten,” Netanyahu said in a closed forum. “This is a prize for terror. The report makes it difficult for democracies to fight terror.”

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Richard Goldstone … found evidence of war crimes from both the Israel Defence Forces and Hamas.

NAOMI LEVIN

LOCAL response to the United Nations report into the Gaza war has been quiet, with Australian community leaders taking time to mull over its implications.

The report, released on Tuesday morning by South African legal expert Justice Richard Goldstone, found evidence of war crimes from both the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Hamas.

Among the findings, were that Israel was engaged in “wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons” during the conflict in December and January.

It also said Hamas’ rocket attacks on southern Israel involved “the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations”.

Philip Chester, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, said on Wednesday morning that it was too soon to have a clear understanding of the implications of the report.

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